Hello, Gladys. Which is the correct thing to do: Should you answer the phone when it's ringing off the hook and ask the customer waiting in line to be patient while you answer the call? Or, should you give priority to the customer standing in front of you and let the phone ring? My manager says that the customer who walks in the door is the one who gets the prompt service. However, when he is out and calls back to the office, he yells and screams that the phone rang too many times. My manager says it's a Catch 22 situation, with both the phone and the walk-in customer having to be served. Everyone in our real estate company reads your column each week and my boss in particular has used your advice. So tell us, which is right? — M.P.

This is an excellent question, and one that many businesses should be concerned about. Just recently I stopped by the bank to take care of a mix-up with my monthly statement. I walked up to the reception counter and found the receptionist on the phone. She completed that call, and then handled four others. About 15 minutes later she got around to greeting me and asked how she could help me.

I also recall another experience that happened several months ago when I went to return an item to a discount warehouse club. I stood in a long line of people and each time the phone rang the woman behind the counter would stop waiting on the customer to answer it. Of course when her attention went back to the customer in front of her, she had to be reminded by that person where they left off. This went on the entire time I was in the line.

Now, I don't know that I can give an answer that will satisfy you. I believe that the customer who walked in is the one who should be given priority. Sometimes it is actually easier to go to a company's location rather than call. With all of the phone prompts that we have to go through today, dropping by a store can be a time saver.

One thing I have noticed is that people respond with great speed to answer a ringing phone, no matter what the situation is. One day I watched a woman in the grocery store drop and break a dozen eggs in an anxious attempt to dig for her ringing cellphone that was buried in her purse. Of course by the time she got to the phone it had stopped ringing.

Your manager is correct that both customers have to be served and should be given prompt acknowledgment whether on the phone or in person. I agree that making customers wait on the phone can be annoying. At the same time having customers wait while you talk on the phone is even more annoying.

Your manager could assign someone to be responsible to answer the phones and delegate others to deal with the walk-ins.

In the good ol' days — a few years ago — that was a standard practice; I can't seem to recall what we called those people but the title "telephone receptionist" comes to mind.

Business folks must remember that we have an obligation to do everything possible to keep our customers happy while providing good service and sometimes that means hiring an extra person. Maybe your manager can look into hiring a student intern to serve customers on the phone. Usually callers are asking questions that can be easily answered. I noticed that in both my experience at the bank and at the discount warehouse club, the clerk seemed to be answering questions about the company's hours, location and or directions to the place. However, some calls do require specialized assistance.

Lately a lot of real estate companies have been doing quite a bit of advertising. If this is the case with your company, you will certainly have a number of people calling and for sure you want your best people on the phones. With the high cost of advertising, I'm sure your company would not want to lose a prospective customer because of a poorly handled telephone call. If you find that the majority of calls are asking simple questions and the heavy stuff is walking through the door then you will need your best people available for the walk-ins. Otherwise you will need to put a couple of the best you have on the phones.

Review the kinds of calls you are receiving and talk to your manager about the best plan of action for your company.

Gladys Edmunds' Entrepreneurial Tightrope column appears Wednesdays. Click here for an index of her columns. As a single, teen-age mom, Gladys made money doing laundry, cooking dinners for taxi drivers and selling fire extinguishers and Bibles door-to-door. Today, Edmunds is founder of Edmunds Travel Consultants in Pittsburgh and author of There's No Business Like Your Own Business, a six-step guide to success published by Viking. Her website is www.gladysedmunds.com. You can e-mail her at gladys@gladysedmunds.com.

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